…horses…
Argentina has quietly become a global leader in cloning horses, owing to the popularity of the practice among the country’s elite polo teams. Cloning a horse is cheaper than ever at around $40,000 per born animal, a price point that doesn’t make a ton of sense unless you’re talking the elite upper levels of an already posh sport like polo. The trend really kicked off when top polo player Adolfo Cambiaso preserved the DNA of his favorite horse in 2006. Since then, his club, La Dolfina, has used over 150 cloned horses. Given that polo horses already can go for between $50,000 and $1 million, simply cloning the ones that have been proven — such as Cambiaso’s mare Cuartetera, a clone of which was auctioned for $800,000 in 2010 — isn’t too financially absurd. The 2016 Palermo Open was a turning point, with six identical mares (Cuartetera B01, Cuartetera B02, Cuartetera B03, Cuartetera B04, Cuartetera B05 and Cuartetera B06) in the competition, even though the original Cuartetera had retired a year ago. Last year, there were 600 to 700 cloned horses in Argentina.
Maximiliano Fernández, Knowable Magazine
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